Ben Waber

Ben Waber is President and CEO of Humanyze, a behavioral analytics company based off of his research, who literally wrote the book on People Analytics. He is also a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where he received his PhD in the Human Dynamics Group working with Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland. He was previously a Senior Researcher at Harvard Business School in the Organizational Behavior group. His work centers around using real-time data flows to rethink management of people, physical architecture, corporate planning, and training, among other things. His work has been featured in many major outlets. Before Humanyze he consulted for industry leaders such as LG, McKinsey & Company, and Gartner on technology trends, social networks, and organizational design. Waber's current research interests include dynamic organizational design, organizational behavior, social networks, sensor networks, prediction mechanisms, and information flow. Waber, author of the book “People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work” (FT Press Analytics, May 2013), shows managers how to measure privacy preserving metrics on the movements and interactions of workers and compare them to higher- or lower-performing employees. In doing so, they can draw vital conclusions about what kind of incentives and working arrangements achieve better results. This revolution in workplace data gathering will, says Waber, ultimately allow businesses to more effectively trial key changes and directly measure the results before introducing them company-wide, improving managers’ ability to implement effective strategies for innovation. Waber’s engaging keynotes help organizations in the present grasp what kind of data they should be evaluating to stay ahead of the curve and increase productivity. He also offers insights on how organizations can instill a company-wide culture that constantly and rapidly tests new hypotheses and improves upon existing policies.